Overseas

Working overseas and in remote locations is both demanding and rewarding but requires a much more sophisticated level of planning and control.

We’ve recently secured a framework contract to deliver works on the client’s estate which covers some 200 countries. It’s never been mainstream work for us but in the last 25 years we’ve carried out some interesting projects overseas reaching from the South to the North Atlantic.

There are a particular set of skills needed to do these works. Often finding the right people is the easier part. The more demanding elements are the logistics. Planning and coordinating staff medical, travel and accommodation which often includes multiple flights and ground transport, preparing, packing, listing both equipment that will be repatriated when the works are complete and materials which will be used in Country; allocating commodity codes and dealing with import / export certificates and duties / taxes payable in the jurisdiction and sometimes in a non-traded currency. When all that’s done our duty of care requires us to monitor and oversee our staff as if they were in the UK, although they can be many thousands of miles and a number of time zones away from the UK. How do you do Tool Box Talks and manage lone working when your staff are –5 hours in South America?